


rascals

by obscurialis



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Canon Sexuality, Childhood Friends, Coming Out, Coming of Age, England (Country), Getting to Know Each Other, Growing Up, High School, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Slow Burn, Teen Crush, Teen Romance, Teen Years, Teenagers, decade
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-09-23 11:22:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20339299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscurialis/pseuds/obscurialis
Summary: two boys explore the world in rural england of the nineties.[lowercase intended] [started 2019]





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> again, lowercase intended.
> 
> dan and phil are the same age in this, sorry.

there was an incoherent fluttering on my insides, electrically charged butterflies crashing into my stomach - lining, intertwining with my lungs. they tickle the bottom of my heart, wanting it, inviting it to join in on the fun, to let go of everything that had held it back - to beat _just_ a little faster, _just_ a little louder.

i knew the feeling of being drunk so terribly well, and i could feel it now, without even touching any booze, just because of the aftertaste of his arm on my back. i felt tipsy, and in love, and i could swear to you if i tripped walking along the edge of some high building i would fly. 

an extraterrestial adventure of straight, black hair, freckles connecting other freckles, careless glances and small smiles lost in time. crows feet unfolding on the outside of his eyes, eyes that looked like a lake on a reckless summers' day, the beach, water and forest all combined into the most _beautiful_ eyes i had ever looked at.

poetically beautiful was an understatement. he was conventionally attractive and unconventionally breathtaking, the most beautiful person i'd ever seen - male _or_ female. and i knew, even if somebody came along, as enchanted of me as i was of them, a star among darkness, phil would still be a _galaxy_ compared to them.

but he didn't like me back.


	2. wellington boots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> monday, september 2nd 1991

"_dan__iel_," his mother hissed, venom seeping through her lips, "would you mind holding still?" she was, quite logically really, irritated because of his endless attempts to rebel against the merciless force that his parents' scrapbooks could be sometimes. dan furrowed his brows. his mum reached for his hair, and he quickly ducked out of the way. dan wanted to whine some more, but decided against it when he looked up at his father, who already was angrily staring at him from above the camera he was holding. he sighed, and dropped his shoulders. _god_, his parents could be annoying.

his mother did something with his hair, ruffling through his hair, trying to tame the insatiable mess that his curls - waves, rather, because of the hastily straightening he had done that morning - were. she pulled back, looked at his hair, and then at her son. something resembling a smile appeared on her face.

"okay," his mom said, plastering a wider fake smile on her face, "smile for the camera now, daniel."

he lifted the corners of his mouth, and probably looked like he had just eaten a lemon, putting on something barely resembling a grin. his dad pressed down, and he was blinded by a clean, white flash, for a fragment of a second. he blinked, dazily, and heard the familiar rattle of the film turning in the camera's body. his dad positioned the camera again, but dan intervened.

"no more, dad," dan stuttered, "i need to go."

"oh, come on, daniel, it's for the picture books!" his mom muttered, but dan pouted - knowing his parents couldn't resist that, and they complied. better. he looked terribly funny in his uniform and one ugly picture to show on christmas day is enough. his brother adrian, who had been playing with his toast up until now, let out a giggle. it probably was directed at no one, or maybe at the existential crisis all six year olds seem to go through. dan walked into the hall, and grabbed his backpack.

"first day of year eight." his mother whispered in his ear, hugging him a little bit too tight. "i'm so proud of you, daniel." his lip trembled, but he suppressed it. this wasn't important enough to tell, let alone show.

the howell family, _his _family, had moved to that neighbourhood at the beginning of the summer vacation 1991, and dan had still not formed his opinion about it. on one side, he was terribly happy to get away from the bullies who pestered him at his last school, and he had spent all of summer admiring his body without bruises and cuts. he had looked in the mirror, staring longingly at the thing he would always own, alienated from it - almost if he didn't recognize it. it had looked like someone else's at first, an imprint of a long-lost memory, but he had gotten used to it. he almost liked it now.

on the other side, he had to start on a new school with near to no social practice. dan had hoped, no, _prayed_, for someone his age to live on his street, but no, he had been cursed with the most terribly 'cutesy' forest lane in english history, with old couples who had forgotten when they had fallen in love, and had lived there through the ice ages, with rose bushes that nobody remembered ever planting, an old oak tree not yet scarred by lovers trying to save what little they had left, and cobblestones that peeked out, that made you trip over your own feet, clumsily breaking even the most collected people. it made you smile, it made you think of your grandparents, but it didn't make you think of _home_. 

the only taste of hope he had felt that summer was hearing silent after-breakfast whispers between his parents about a family eight houses down, but dan wasn't sure they even had a son, let alone a son his age. and if they had, he wasn't even sure he wanted to know them.

like any other drug, friendship was better never taken, than a faint taste of it, and then never again.

the weather however hadn't cared about his silent worries, and it had cursed every anxiety-ridden youngster preparing for day one of what most would consider the best year of their life, raining, teasing a storm yet to come, a hurricane in the making. he wore navy wellington boots, and a matching coat his mother had found in london on one of her shopping sabbaticals. he had been forced to wear it, already knowing what names they'd call him, knowing that they'd bully him for it. his mother had raised her brows, and his father had stared, and he'd accepted his fate.

his dad ruffled through his hair. dan hated it, when people did that. he'd spent too much time perfecting it, straightening away every twist and turn, and it was one of the only things he really liked about himself. 

"stop it, dad," dan said, ducking out of the way, "i'm not a little boy anymore." 

his dad's face transformed into a smile for a split-second, after which he transformed back into his emotionless self. 

"yes, you are. you've just turned twelve, daniel."

his parents were the only two people that actually called him daniel on a daily basis. most of his grandparents, and his great-grandmother, called him dan, or danny, which was okay too. but they always called him 'daniel'. _didn't they think it was a nuisance? pronouncing all that?_ he thought.

"well," dan said, pulling down his coat once more and grabbing his bag, "i'll be going now." 

he stepped outside, residing under the cover of the balcony above him for an seemingly everlasting second more, pulling his hood over his hair, making sure it stayed the way it was. he looked at his beat up bicycle leaning against the white fence, which he and his father had painted the week before. he smiled, and started running, concentrating on the way the raindrops kissed his face, welcoming him into the unwelcome september cold. he took it, looked back once more, and saw they had already closed the door. _ofcourse_, he thought, _why wouldn't they?_

he started cycling, and thought of the rain trickling down his neck right that moment. it would be caught by the hem of his shirt, maybe his collar, and you could probably see it quite clearly in the harsh school lighting. dan thought of the bullies, and pulled his hood further over his eyes. almost too far, but he managed. dan looked at the town while he cycled through it. he passed countless cars, and a few people, families, mostly, walking, with imperial umbrellas covering their face. he saw the same bland, grey, neatly-ironed pants he was wearing too. dan suppressed urges to wave at them, to make an acquantance before arriving at school, to navigate year eight with a little help.

arriving at school was easier than he had expected, and without thinking he parked his bike in the spot closest to both the main entrance and the gate, making sure the distance to his bike wasn't enough to jump him in. dan walked into the school, and felt a primal sense of danger roll over him, something that had always greeted him at places like this. he felt eyes press into his back, curiosity being weighed against disgust, whispers pushing him around, bouncing from one side of his head to the other. he wasn't close enough to see the malicious twinkles in their eyes, their one-sided smiles and sloppy chuckles, stuffed between bits of conversation, but he knew they were there. he could _hear _them thinking 'stupid boy, caught all alone in the rain'. he almost felt their breath on his neck, and scratched it. tribes of friends pushed him to the side, and everything was too full to be understood right now. he turned around, catching some people pretend they weren't staring at him. _he knew it_.

and then he walked head first into someone.

hair tickled his nose, and he jumped back. dan had bumped into another boy, who looked to be about his age, light brown hair framing his face like a painting hung in the louvre, and striking blue eyes - which he couldn't detect any twinkles in. they sparkled, but they emitted happiness. they were the most intense blue, almost teal, eyes.

"oh." the boy said, no discernable tone in his voice. it sounded like a line read from a script than an expression of pain, and dan couldn't suppress a giggle. the boy looked at him, one of the corners of his mouth lifting, raising one of his eyebrows.

"excuse me?" he said, in the same monotone voice as just before, and the laugh dissappeared from dan's face.

"oh, uh, yeah, right," he stumbled, thinking about what to say that wouldn't get him shoved into a locker. fuck! he wasn't good at this. he wasn't even bad at it. he'd never done this before.

"sorry, i laughed. and, uh, sorry i bumped into you. sorry, for _this_," motioning to him and phil, "i'm not good at this." he looked down at his feet, and up again at the boy. he smiled at dan, and dan couldn't help but smile back.

"that's okay. neither am i."

they stood in front of each other in silence. they formed a fragile bond of peace, among a whirlwind of war. they basked in the sound and bathed in the storm that a high school hallway on the first morning of the school year could be, intricate patterns of people forming around them, pushing and shoving them to the side to fit their calculated path. dan wasn't sure if it was his turn to say something; if you even had turns in saying something in a moment like this, because frankly, this one of the first actual social interactions he had had in a very long time, and he didn't know what to do with it just yet. and just when he noticed phil was starting to press his weight into his heels, preparing to turn around, _to run away from him_, dan did something incredibly stupid.

he extended his hand.

"i'm dan." he stuttered with it, trying not to start shaking.

he looked down again, not bearing to look at phil if he thought he was weird, and logically didn't want to shake the clammy hand of some tiny boy who had just walked into him. he started at his new shoes and then at phil's mud-stained converses. they had drawing all over them, but what they said dan couldn't read, because before he knew it, and to his utters surprise, he felt someone take his hand, and shake it.

he looked up, and the boy smiled at him. dan tried - and failed - not to stare at the boys' incredible eyes. if he had, however, concentrated on the handshake, and not on the boy's glowing smile and electric blue eyes, he had felt the ultra light squeezed, the light rubbing of his thumb on the back of his hand, and that they had been standing there, like that, shaking hands, for a second too long. but dan didn't, and he just smiled back at the boy.

"i'm phil.

phil lester."


	3. proper introduction, sort of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thursday, october 19th 1991 (also yes, phil hasn't dyed his hair yet, don't bother)

three weeks went by in the blink of an eye, a barely noticeable change of day. it had been raining for the better part of those three weeks, with a, very welcomed, sunny saturday afternoon in the middle of it. school had been incredibly uninteresting, which was quite possibly the best it could be for dan. he hadn't made any friends, of course he hadn't, but he was happier like that. on the other side, he hadn't made any enemies too, which made him even happier.

of course he had seen phil, the ginger-haired boy he'd shaken hands with on the first day, a few times. they would pass each other between classes, and they had gym class together - their two groups were combined for it. but phil would be incredibly close to the teacher, carefully listening to instructions. dan wasn't all that athletic, and liked to stay back with the other friendless nerds. he liked to retreat to the safety of the back of the class, where nobody looked at you funny and you could think in peace about everyone and everything.

he had been doing a lot of thinking, these three weeks. about everything you could possibly think about, and then some. he had thought endlessly about a small, tiny, bruise he had gotten over the weekend, its indigo colours dancing with oceans of dim purple, spreading underneath his skin. you would guess dan would despise it, but actually, he hadn't. rather, dan had found it interesting, and had intensively stared at it. he had traced along the edges with his fingers, daring the universe balancing on the edge like that. if he had moved his finger just a millimeter, he had touched it, and he had probably make it hurt somehow.

dan, being the person he was, had found it endlessly poetic, and had _endlessly_ wrote about it in his diary. he had rambled on, braiding and weaving sentences together with long words he didn't yet understand, carelessly pulling paper thin thoughts out of a bowl. and of course, he had thought about phil. he thought about it as if he had grasped friendship, but it was just _too_ far away. about phil's honey-blonde hair, the way it fell around his face like a curtain would on the morning after bad decisions, and phil's remarkable eyes, and the curiosity that accompanied it, about what was behind them. dan thought phil was a through-and-through positive person, bearer of a smile that could melt your insides and always in an infectious happiness, a sickness with only nice symptoms. phil hadn't talked to him, at all, but he'd gifted dan a few nods of his head and a quick smile, passing each other in the hallway, losing each other sooner than they'd seen each other. but it was enough to keep dan thinking.

he had fallen into a routine, lost to time, but he strangely enjoyed it - mindless passing of time wasn't his thing. on another rainy morning, he put his empty plate in the kitchen, ruffled adrian through his hair, who giggled in response. adrian could talk of course, he was six years old, but he had gotten these new spiderman comics from the shopping mall yesterday, and he was too busy to respond, but dan knew this was okay, this was their little thing. his ruffle and his giggle. he kissed his mom, on the cheek nevertheless, but a kiss anyway to keep her happy, and gave his dad an high five. it wasn't raining that much outside, but then again, it had been raining for the better part of the last month, which was welcome at first after the stinging heat of that summer, but now just bothered dan. he walked out, stood on the doorstep and pulled his hood over his head.

like he did everyday, dan cycled past the estates on his street, not embarrassed to look around he waved to an old man who had smoked a cigar on his porch every morning, and he knew the man wasn't going to wave back, but dan knew he enjoyed it. he didn't have any family, and he didn't have a wife, or at least dan had never seen her. he cycled straight on, but looked back at the man, who he caught flashing a smile. dan smiled back, and then suddenly, he collided with something.

"fuck!" he yelled, as a first response. time started moving slower, and he hit the steering wheel of his bike. his bicycle had hit something, and it had launched him over it. he closed his eyes, and flew through the air. it could have never taken more than five seconds, but it felt like it took an hour. he collided with more metal, and then, surprisingly, warmth. dan's extended arms hit the ground and a sharp pain shot through his right arm. he he hit more warmth, and realized he had landed laying on something.

"ouch." someone muttered, and dan opened his eyes.

_fuck_.

for real, fuck. why did dan always have to have this kind of stupid, dumb luck, the kind that always got him in trouble somehow? the kind that cursed him to stutter, to talk about things for just too long to scare people away, the kind that had made him hit phil's bicycle and then _land_ on him. why couldn't he, just for once, not hit something, not fall on the only person he would have a shot at friendship with. this always happened when he thought everything was okay. he felt like a clueless tourist on a beach about to get swept away by a tsunami.

"oh, it's you!" phil exclaimed, and seconds started going by slower. dan tried to push himself off, to make this less awkward, but felt his wrist sting and fell back down again, hitting phil's chest once more.

"wow, hey," phil said, worry perforating his voice, "what's wrong? what's happened with your wrist?"

how could phil be so sympathetic in this moment? dan had just presumably completely destroyed his bicycle, had cannonballed into his stomach, had knocked him over, to the ground and was currently laying on him, unable to get up. how had phil not called him 'gay' yet, how hadn't he pushed him off? hadn't shuddered in utter disgust yet? how had he tolerated these seconds, starting to feel like minutes, in the cold rain with _him_?

"there's nothing with my wrist," dan said, rolling off phil. his wrist hang sadly to his side, and it hurt a whole lot more than he was showing. he stood up and picked up his bike with his free hand.

phil stood up too, and wiped some mud off his coat, exclaiming softly as he touched the disgusting substance. he shivered. _there it was_.

"are you sure? i can ask my mom to bring us to school?" phil said, smiling, "i wouldn't mind to be honest. look at the weather." 

that was probably the last thing dan wanted, despite his wrist hurting more each passing moment. he didn't want to get a parent involved. he wanted to get to school, go to the two classes he had in the morning, go to the school nurse in the lunch break, and not talk to any adult about this. this was something he could deal with alone, and he was going to.

"no, don't," dan whispered, as softly as he could. he looked at phil, and saw the raindrops connecting his freckles, forming constellations, dancing around over his rosy cheeks, rolling over his chin, and falling off, hitting his blazer, colouring the collar just a bit darker. it would be soaking when he'd arrive at school.

"do you want to sit on the back of my bike? i can drive you too." 

dan thought about it for a second. did he want to do this? maybe phil was just joking, so he waited for a few moments. phil kept looking at him sternly. so no, not a joke.

"sure," he stuttered. phil smiled. dan felt an itching in his stomach, almost telling him something was wrong, the same thing you felt on the highest point on a swing, when you're about to come back down again. 

"you can put your bike over there," phil said, and he pointed to some fence a few meters away with a few more bikes leaned against it.

dan knew everything that phil was saying was just a facade of friendship, but he felt a hint of happiness, and he allowed himself to feel it. he nodded, smiled, and parked his bicycle in the lesters' front yard, next to an old swing set that probably hadn't been touched in years. he knew what he was doing was going to be a story, that phil was going to whisper about him, about the 'weird kid', behind his back. he knew what was going on was going to be some silly party story in a few days, but he smiled again, and phil smiled back.

"so, you live around here, huh?" the blonde boy said.

"yes, i live on number fourteen." 

"ah, okay. what's your last name?

"why do you want to know?" dan responded, and he looked at phil. he was wearing a quite similar navy coat, with this fur trim around the hood, and with a lot of pockets, and the same dirty, muddy converse he'd been wearing when they'd met. he still couldn't make out the writing on them though. he could make out some of the letters, but phil's handwriting was terribly messy.

"so we're properly introduced. i've told you mine, you know where i live, you know?" phil said, and he chuckled. was he making some sort of joke? why did he want to know more about him?

"it's howell."

"well, dan howell, we're properly introduced. sort of." phil said, and he took dans hand - the good one, which somehow, he knew which that was - from next to his side and shook it. he laughed, and dan laughed back. dan jumped on phil's luggage carrier, and phil started cycling.

and in that moment dan was just a boy on the back of some other boys bicycle.


	4. where'd you get that?

dan enjoyed the cold, humid morning air, and instead of joining in on the conversation happening around him, he looked at the beautiful countryside scenery he and phil cycled past. his wrist was definitely still hurting, but he could move it a little without inbearable pain, so it probably, hopefully, wasn't broken. phil had cycled up to a group of his friends and had begun talking to them, and dan had felt unnecessary, and had stayed silent - taking in their conversation like a sponge but not partaking in it at all.

"did you see lizzy?" the friend, whose name had been said a few times but dan didn't bother to remember, and phil turned to look at him, muttering something incoherent. the friend either understood or didn't care, because he went on. 

"yeah, massive! she hit puberty this summer, i think," he loudly exclaimed, and with every word, dan wanted to shrink more. he wanted to jump off, right then and there in the slight rain, and he wanted to disappear into the pavement like a piece of gum would. why was he talking so loud? everybody would look at them. phil didn't seem to notice, and made small talk with the boy. he didn't talk to dan anymore which he didn't found surprising after the terrible first impression he had made, but still hurt him, somewhere, somehow.

they entered the big city - or really, centre, because this city was everything but big - and even more people joined their group. the troupe of teenage cyclers cycled over the main road, and dan couldn't focus on any of the many conversations going on around him.

"say, mikey, did you meet dan yet? he's new here," phil said, and dan felt like he'd just been violently awoken from a mildly pleasant sleep. he stared at the fibers in phil's fuzzy coat collar, and then looked at the friend, apparently named mikey, who looked back at him. dan awkwardly smiled, contorting his face into an uneven, assymetric grimace.

"ah, so _you're_ the new kid? what do you think of the school so far?" he asked, and dan was surprisingly happy he asked, but knew this boy wasn't terribly - if at all - interested in his answer and his story, so he answered with a simple 'it's okay', and continued to look around and stare at people, assuming that would be the end of it, but the boy coughed and asked him another question.

"have you talked to lizzy yet?" mikey asked.  


"mike, come on- he's barely settled in-" phil tried, but mikey didn't care.

"no, phil!" he said, once again very - too - loud; dan was starting to think he just couldn't talk at a normal volume. "you can't _not_ have seen elizabeth tomlinson, even if you're new." he continued, and laughed. phil laughed too. dan realized he really liked phil's laugh. it filled your lungs and danced around in your ears; it made you feel warm inside.

"who's lizzy tomlinson?" dan whispered, daring to ask. he didn't really want to, frankly he wanted to stay as far away from these people as he could, but all this talk about this girl 'lizzy' made him terribly curious. his father sometimes told him, curious people can not be introverts, and in moments like these he thought his dad was right. also, he wanted to keep it friendly with this mikey, because he looked like he'd bully him if he could.

"she's only the most popular girl!" mikey shouted again, and laughed, "she's got a brother in year eleven, tom, he's like the best footballer on the team, and he's got this babe from year twelve as his girlfriend." 

phil hit a speed bump, and dan hit the luggage carrier extra hard when he came back down. he muttered a 'fuck', not thinking phil would pick it up, but he did.

"oh, i'm so sorry, i'd usually put a jacket down, but since it's raining.." phil said, trailing off, talking blatantly over mikey but the boy didn't seem to notice. he was still talking about this girl lizzy, who had apparently started puberty during the previous sumer break and had kissed with some year ten boy from another school, and dan noticed neither him or phil was listening, so just tuned in with a 'wow' to keep mikey satisfied and talking. 

soon, they hit another speed bump, and phil apologized before dan was even sitting upright again. 

"hey dan?" phil whispered, talking over mikey but keeping their conversation quiet enough to keep it between them, wanting only dan to listen.

"yeah?"

"do i need to show you to the nurse's office?" 

when they had arrived at school, they were all soaking wet and gathered half the school - friends of friends, as phil called them - around them. a lot of them had asked dan what he thought of the school, and a few had even listened - seemingly _interested_ in it - to where he had come from, where he lived before all this.

dan's stomach kept tingling, and he couldn't help but smile. he talked to people like he enjoyed it, phil standing next to him, introducing him to people phil himself seemed to barely know. in the back of his head, dan knew all this interest was a facade, but he liked the attention and he liked that people were nice to him for a change. he couldn't help but giggle at the inside jokes they made, even though the meant nothing to him and maybe even were to make fun of him, but they made him feel included. in the first break they had, phil led him around the school, to a seemingly abandoned, musty hallway, which ended in the nurse's office. 

this school was endlessly fancier than the last, and instead of a claustrophobia inducing classroom with the windows nailed shut and a medicine cabinet partially raided by drunk year twelves, a few empty bed decorated the room, and a seemingly lovely lady with a bottle blonde beehive and amy winehouse-eyeliner was sat on one of them, a cosmetics magazine opened, held in her hands. 

"that's helga," phil sneakily whispere dot dan, "she's not as nice as she seems." dan looked around the room, and noticed another lady, stood besides a medicine cabinet, organizing something in there. she had short grey hair, and wore a white lab coat over a frilly baby blue dress. she exhaled kindness and looked like the kind grandma that baked cookies for the neighbourhood kids who thanked her by kicking their ball into her rose bush.

"who's that?" dan whispered back. instead of responding to him, phil walked straight to the grey-haired lady.

"hey millie!" phil said, and the lady turned around. she, apparently named millie, smiled at the sight of the blonde boy, and rubbed her hands together with a gleeful smile on her face.

“who have you brought for me today?” she asked, and gestured to dan. he noted she didn’t directly talk to him, like he was some sort of alien. it didn't generally phase him since it happened so much, but when an authority did it, it did hurt a little. he kept smiling at her anyways.

“this is dan howell, he’s new here. i actually crashed into him with my bike, and his wrist hurts.” phil explained. he looked back at dan, and smiled at him.

it took a while for dan to realize there was something wrong with what phil had said, and why he smiled. dan had run into phil, not the other way around, as phil had explained it. what was he trying to do? 

dan entertained the thought of phil doing it to save dan and embarrassing note in his school file, but mentally wooshed it away. nobody would do that for him, especially somebody he had just almost run over, and barely knew. maybe he just forgot, or just didn’t care what had happened. _that must be it_.

“ah, i see,” millie said, turning to dan, “how’s your wrist now, dan?” 

dan extended his wrist, and turned it around, showing its capabilities, or its lack there-of. pretty soon he groaned in pain, and held it with his other hand again. the woman looked at him, worried.

“it’s not broken.” he muttered, scared of what she might think of him now. this crybaby-boy who turned up here at about eleven in the morning, accompanied by someone she seemingly knew quite well. 

“i can see that, that’s good. does it still hurt as much as it did when you fell?” millie asked, touching the skin around his wrist. dan tried not to flinch.

“no, but it still hurts a little,” dan muttered again. he didn’t want to talk too loud, and expertly controlled his volume.

“ah. okay.” millie turned around, and shoved some things in the closet aside. phil giggled, and dan looked at him. how did phil know this woman so well? he looked at millie, and she turned around, facing them again, with some grey and blue thing in her hand.

“dan, this is a wrist brace,” she said, flopping the thing around, making all three of them laugh, “and i’m going to put this on your wrist. it should keep it stable. try not to move it too much, and check in with me in a few days. if you don’t return the brace, i’ll give a call to your parents and you can turn it in, yeah?”

a lot to take in, but dan understood. millie put the wrist brace on his wrist, and send them on their merry way. phil held open the door, and they stepped into the silent and cold hallway. the break had probably ended, and dan worried about the way back, but phil led him.

seconds were filled with emptiness, and dan didn’t know what to say in such seconds, so he stayed silent. phil hummed softly, a song dan barely recognized, but could remember the tune of. time moved slower with every synchronized step they took, their footsteps echoing, bouncing against the way too high ceilings and escaping out of slightly opened windows just out of reach.

just when dan was about to say something to put an end to that terribly silence, phil said something.

“do you want to skip the next two hours? go outside?” he asked, out of the blue. dan thought about it. he hadn’t ever played hooky, since he didn’t really have a reason to; no friends to do anything with, and no hobbies. he barely played football, too. he wanted to say no, naturally, but something in phil’s voice enchanted him, and made him say,

“yeah, sure.”

and so they walked outside. it had stopped raining, and their emptiness was filled: they had found something to talk about. it was just filler conversation, until they started talking about their favourite bands, which dan could get quite passionate about - he loved music dearly, and loved talking about it - and phil nonchalantly dropped he liked the band radiohead. dan stood still, and barely noticed his heart skipped a beat.

“you like radiohead?” dan asked, hesitantly. phil looked at dan, and smiled.

“yeah, it’s one of my favourite bands,” phil said, and he giggled.

dan could act distant all he wanted, but he realized phil was somebody he wanted to be friends with. he was terribly nice to him, had unrealistically blue eyes, and liked radiohead, his favourite band. seemed like a perfect first friend.

“really? i love radiohead! what’s your favourite song?” dan said, endlessly more excited than he had wanted, and in shock, he held his hand in front of his mouth. _stupid_, he thought, _why’d you do that?_ phil didn’t seem to care though, and laughed again. he laughed a lot, and dan felt relieved. his embarrassment melted as soon as he heard that godforsaken laugh, and he smiled back.

“karma police, i think.”

they talked away while walking, and didn't realize they'd been walking for half an hour, lost in their conversation. coming from radiohead, they discovered they also both liked nirvana, my bloody valentine and phil eagerly told him about a band he really liked, which he discovered through his brother - which he apparently had, a brother, called martyn, who'd already finished high school and was possibly, from the bits dan knew about him, the coolest person ever.

"we're a bit far out, don't you think?" phil suddenly said, and he stood still. dan  woke up from his trance. he realized he had went on about so much uninteresting stuff that phil probably didn’t even care about, and slapped himself mentally. he had to be more modest next time, and hold it in.

“yeah,” he muttered. which was a  dumb answer. it sounded monotone, mean almost, and he didn’t want to give phil the impression he was uninterested. phil sat down on a nearby bench, and dan stood beside it. phil smiled at him, seemingly accepting he didn't want to sit, and started ruffling in his backpack, quickly pulling out a small, metal tin. he opened it, and it was filled with cigarettes, each one crooked, or broken, or a different colour, seemingly all from different brands or packs.

cigarettes! his parents had warned him, scared of people like phil, that would corrupt their little boy, and he stared in, almost disbelief, how phil put it between his lips, pulled a standard white lighter out of his pocket, and lit it. he took the first drag, and the tip of the cigarette lit up, luminescent red, like a sunset on a forgotten summer's day, the colour of clouds as the sun sank beneath them, into the even darker but similarly coloured ocean, a memory made to keep forever. a small cloud of grey smoke escaped his lips, and he smiled.

“do you smoke?” phil asked.

dan didn’t know what to answer to that. no, of course he didn’t, but phil was nice and cool, and knew lots of people, and he thought dan was okay. he was silent for too long, he realized, and phil laughed.

“not really,” he decided to say, and he smiled, not knowing what to do next. “where’d you get that?”

phil laughed again, and he held the cigarette between his fingers like a parisian art student would, expertly moving it around.

“my brother, he buys me a pack every once in a while,” phil said, and he put the cigarette between his lips, and let out a little trail of smoke.

“do your parents know?” dan asked, still in disbelief. how could such a nice boy, like phil, do something so terrible?

“i don’t think so,” phil answered, furrowing his brows and tapping his cigarette to release all of the ash, which dropped into the puddle that was next to them on the ground. it sizzled and puffed, every time it hit the water.

“oh. cool.” dan said, not knowing what to answer to that. 

“do you want to try one?” phil asked.

dan didn't really want to, but at the same time, phil was quite possibly the only person that maybe wanted to be friends with him, that had offered up such a big chunk of his day for him, and he didn't want to disappoint him, to make him think that he wasn't a cool person. he wanted phil to think he was really cool and effortless like he was. so dan nodded, and phil handed him a cigarette.

dan’s stomach turned upside down, his organs dancing with each other, endlessly intertwining. his heart started beating faster, as he held the cigarette between two fingers, like he’d seen in the films. phil laughed, and held the lighter up to the tip. 

“how do i do this?” dan asked, nervously. he had clammy hands and was terribly scared to drop the cigarette and make phil think he was stupid. phil smiled, and took another drag, effortlessly. he looked like he had been smoking for years, while only being thirteen, fourteen at most. how old _was_ phil?

“just put that between your lips, and kind of suck it,” phil said, and dan giggled. he was just a teenage boy, and he automatically giggled when he heard that, and phil catched it too - and laughed with him. 

“shut up,” phil laughed, and took another drag. dan did what phil told him, and tried to take a drag. he inhaled the smoke that filled his lungs, and started violently coughing, letting go of the cigarette in the process. it fell out of his hand into a small, undeep puddle, and went out with a slight sizzle. phil laughed. 

“fuck, sorry,” dan said, between coughs. phil laughed even harder, and took a drag of his cigarette. phil looked way cooler with it than dan would ever, and somewhere he was glad he dropped it. he wasn’t tainted, yet.

“it’s okay,” phil said, softly, and smiled. dan had stopped coughing. “don’t inhale, just keep it in your mouth, and then let it go.” dan’s heart was still beating pretty fast, he had never done this kind of stuff before. he was glad phil was there to help him though.

“do you want to try again? you can take a drag off mine,” phil said, and he gestured his head to his cigarette, which surprisingly still was lit. dan nodded, and phil brought it up to his mouth. he did the same, kept the smoke in his mouth, and then breathed it out almost. he giggled after.

“yeah, that’s right! perfect!” phil exclaimed, and took another drag himself, not minding dan had just done the same. dan’s heart beat even faster. he’d just shared a cigarette with phil. it was something intimate, a secret shared between the two, and dan couldn’t help but smile. 

he had smiled a lot that day, and of course he was doing it at that moment, running back to school in the pouring rain. after the cigarettes, they had talked for a while, but they noticed the clouds becoming darker, and they’d started their journey home. about halfway there, it started raining, and they had started running, and it hadn’t stopped.

“almost there!” phil shouted, back at dan, who was running behind him. dan puffed, not used to this much running and just having smoked a cigarette. he didn’t know the way too, and had no choice but to follow phil, staying as close as he could to him, not able to lose him for he wouldn’t get back to school.  he thought about what had happened. he had always thought of friendship, or friends in general, as something taboo, a thing better to be left alone and not talked about, but his mid-day adventures with phil made him feel happy. he hadn’t laughed this much in a long time, and hadn’t felt this happy in, well, ever.

did he, maybe, want to be friends with phil? did he want to make friends? phil had many, and they all seemed nice and interested in him that morning, and he thought about how it would be if he actually had friends. maybe, even, he could find a girlfriend. not daring to entertain the thought for too long, they arrived back at school, just in time for the last two classes.

“dan?” phil asked him. dan was suddenly terribly scared he'd been so engulfed in his daydream, that he completely missed phil's talking to him. he hadn’t understand anything phil had said, and wasn’t even sure he had said anything.

“yeah, what’s up?” he answered.

“you’re coming back with me after school today, right?”


End file.
